The invention relates to systems and methods for measuring calorie contents of food items, and more particularly, to systems and methods for non-destructively measuring calorie contents of food items.
Due to health or other reasons it may be desirable to control one's weight. To effectively control weight, it is desirable to have a proper balance between caloric intake and number of calories burned. Whether a user is following a specific diet, a particular exercise regimen, is on weight gain/loss program or had a gastric bypass surgery, it is desirable to correlate calorie consumption with the number of calories burned. Even if the user wishes to merely maintain his/her weight, it is necessary to balance the number of calories consumed and the number of calories burned, as in this case both should be approximately same.
The calories are burned as a result of specific exercises/physical activities done by the user. In calculating the number of calories burned, the user takes into consideration the type of activity in which the user is engaged. The number of calories burned is a function of the level of activity and also dependent upon the particular characteristics of the individual, such as the weight, age and sex. To obtain the number of calories burned due to a specific exercise/physical activity the user may use available devices that enable automated monitoring of calories burned. For example, most modern exercise machines display an estimate of the number of calories burned during that particular exercise. Further, the user may use accelerometer based activity monitors to automatically translate daily body movements to the calories burned.
In recording the number of calories consumed, it is desirable that the user has some information readily available which indicates the number of calories per unit quantity of various food items that the user is consuming. Keeping track of calories consumed remains a fairly manual and time-consuming task. Typically, keeping track of the calories consumed requires the user to measure a weight or volume of each food item to be consumed and to find the calories of that particular food item from an index (either a book or online). Subsequently, the user has to then translate the index units to the amount of food eaten and record in a diet journal. Further, many of the food items eaten may not be accurately described by a value in the index. Also, the calorie content of the food items consumed varies widely depending on the ingredients and amounts of those ingredients. One way around this problem is to manually index each ingredient in a recipe and add them up; but this requires even more effort. The actual calorie content of a meal may vary widely depending upon the actual quantities of ingredients used in the preparation of the meal.
Some of the existing industrial approaches use a guided microwave spectrometer (GMS) for moisture and fat content analysis. In GMS method the sample chamber, where the food item will be disposed for measuring the moisture and fat content, is required to be filled completely with the food item to enable the spectrometry based measurements to be carried out. Although the food will occupy a portion of the sample chamber, due to varying shapes and sizes of the food items (e.g., fruits, vegetables, sandwiches, pizza slices, etc.), it may not be always feasible to fill the sample chamber with the food.
In addition, if the user needs to measure a calorie content of a meal, where the meal comprises two or more food items, the existing systems require that the calorie contents of the different food items be estimated one at a time. The existing systems are not configured to simultaneously estimate individual calorie contents of the two or more food items. Hence, making it time consuming to assess total calorie content of the meal.
There is therefore a need for a system and method that is suited for different food types and allows a user to get an empirical estimate of a calorie content of the food items of various shapes and sizes that the user plans to consume. In addition, there is a need for a system and method that allows the user to simultaneously estimate individual calorie contents of different food items, e.g., different items that comprise a meal.